Oh Buakaw. If you've been following his non-progress for the last few years you know how much of a struggle just about anything that he does can be. In many ways, Buakaw has broken the mold of a traditional Thai Fighter; he went and fought Europeans in K-1 MAX and did very well, he came back an international conqueror, left his camp, had a weird relationship with a promoter and a few sponsors before getting on the outs with them and then hooked up with MAX Muay Thai.

His court proceedings continue one, but it is important to note that Buakaw's contract with Thai Fight has ended, according to his Facebook page.

Outcome of today's proceedings in the Civil Court at Ratchadapisek - there will be another session to hear the decision on whether this lawsuit will be handled by the Civil Court or the Central Intellectual Property & International Trade Court. Buakaw also announced through his lawyer that he has officially terminated his contract with Thai Fight...

That does indeed mean that he is free to fight for MAX Muay Thai, as opposed to just doing exhibitions. The rumor that has been shooting around over the past few days revolves around a possible agreement between MAX and GLORY which would focus on putting Buakaw in the big fights that we want to see him in, including a possible Petrosyan fight in either Asia or Italy, and then Buakaw involved in the next 70kg GLORY tournament, which is what fans have been begging for now for a while.

The past few years have been turbulent times in the life of Sombat Banchamek, best known as Buakaw Banchamek, formerly known as Buakaw Por. Pramuk. The legendary fighter from Thailand is perhaps best known for his tenure within K-1, where he took home two K-1 World MAX Championships, cementing his legacy as one of the best 70kg fighters in the world. For fans of Banchamek, the last few years have been trying ones, as Banchamek found himself with tremendous personal and professional struggles that kept him out of the ring, or if he was in the ring, facing sub-par competition to keep the legend of Buakaw alive and well.

The first struggle was with his home camp, Por. Pramuk gym, where Buakaw felt that he was being treated unfairly and chose to leave. Well, things aren’t that simple in Thailand, with the bond between a gym and fighter being akin to that of an ironclad contract. Buakaw made impassioned pleas to the public about his poor treatment and how he, one of the biggest stars to come out of Thailand’s Muay Thai scene, was still living a life of moderate poverty and unable to visit his family at will.

Whenever the name Buakaw comes up people want to know if and when he'll sign with GLORY, when the reality is that his life is far more complicated than just signing a new contract now, and has been for a while. Buakaw Banchamek, formerly Buakaw Por. Pramuk, has had his life become very public over the last year or so, with his struggles against former camp Por. Pramuk and then with former promoter in Thai Fight. Now he is fighting for MAX Muay Thai, although he hasn't been able to "fight" due to a court case against Thai Fight.

Buakaw has instead been fighting demo fights, which means just exhibitions that don't count as legitimate fights towards his record, but still have him involved in the show to put butts in the seats. In a way it is kind of brilliant, if not kind of obnoxious.

Well, according to this photo from MAX Muay Thai's Facebook page, Buakaw can now fight for them, possibly on the August event in China.

Consider this some of the most exciting news that we all saw from a mile away to happen in quite a while. After the recent movement in Buakaw's legal status and camp and MAX posting about the "best is back" on their Facebook page it was very clear what was going down. It is now, apparently, official according to their Facebook page.

On August 10th MAX Muay Thai will originate from Zhengzhou, China and feature a four-man tournament. The four men in the 68kg tournament are Liam Harrison, Sagetdao Petchphayathai, Zhang De Zeng and Martin Ahktar. Those four make for a pretty interesting tournament, although you could argue that Segetdao and Harrison are the clear favorites to meet in the Finals, but that's OK with us.

They also have confirmed that Buakaw Banchamek will be making his official return to the ring, meaning actually fighting and not involved in an exhibition, at this event. His opponent has yet to be named and on a month's notice I do not suspect that it will be a huge fight like everyone wants, but be patient.

It's kind of funny how a fighter like Buakaw can not be in the news for months and months and then he'll be practically unavoidable. For right now Buakaw's relationship with MAX Muay Thai seems to be benefiting him as they are keeping his name out there, now that he can actually fight for them and not just participate in exhibition bouts. This is probably a pretty good thing, right? Especially at this stage in Buakaw's career.

Buakaw Has an Opponent at MAX Muay Thai 3

Yes, we knew that Buakaw would be fighting at MAX Muay Thai 3 in China on August 10th, but we weren't sure who it would be against. Now, thanks to a Facebook update from MAX, we know that he'll be fighting against Chinese fighter Dong Wenfei. Wenfei is a Sanda fighter who mainly fights in Kickboxing rules, but Buakaw is not a stranger to those rules, either. One of Weifei's biggest fights was a loss against Vuyisile Colossa, who is probably best known for fighting for ONE FC now. He's also fought Albert Kraus, Big Ben, Aikipracha and more, although he hasn't beaten any of those bigger names.

This will be a good tune-up fight for Buakaw, at least. MAX also announced some other fights for the card, including Aikpracha vs. Jordan Watson and Khem vs. Maiki Karatanasis.

New Buakaw Documentary

Because you can't get enough Buakaw, there is a new documentary that has been released on him that has been out for about a month now called Boxer, Legend, Legacy. It can be rented on Vimeo for $7.

MAX Muay Thai held their last big event on August 10th in China, where newly-signed K-1 fighter Buakaw Banchamek made his return to the ring in actual competition. MAX Muay Thai has picked up the mantle of Thai Fight by having Thailand vs. the World as a running theme and this show was no different, with the Thai fighters facing off against some formidable competition from far away lands. Of course, these fights were a bit more competitive, but the Thai fighters were able to walk away victorious in the end.

Fans might have wanted more fireworks or finishes, but these were some solid fights. You have to remember that Buakaw hasn't fought a real fight in a while now, consider this a tune-up fight.

MAX Muay Thai IV: Sendai went down over the span of last night in Japan in a night that promised some big action with Buakaw facing his stiffest challenge in years by the way of Yoshihiro Sato. They have met three times previous, with Buakaw holding two victories and Sato holding one. That one victory that Sato held was a third round knockout over Banchamek, which made this rematch all the more enticing for fans. Sato showed flashes of brilliance in the first round, but after Banchamek got warmed up he took control over the fight, with Sato not having an answer for Buakaw's sweeps and throws throughout. For many fans, this was an important fight for Banchamek, as his last loss was to Andy Souwer in 2009, but since then the level of competition has been called into question for his fights in Thai Fight and MAX Muay Thai. With Sato being a benchmark it is clear that Banchamek is still in top form against a solid opponent.

Jingreedtong walked away as the victor in the one-night tournament, as well as Aikpracha and HIROYA picking up big wins as well.

MAX Muay Thai held their last event of the year, MAX Muay Thai The Final Chapter in Thailand today, which saw a huge main event featuring Buakaw Banchamek vs. Enriko Kehl, which always struck me as odd knowing that both Buakaw and Kehl will be fighting for K-1 on December 28th in separate fights, but hey, the more fights featuring these two the better, I say. There was also a 4-man tournament featuring Sagetdao, Andrei Kubelin, Victor Ngabe and Dylan Salvador.

Buakaw and Kehl fought a very tough fight, with Kehl looking good at first, but Buakaw really running away with the fight as it went on, opening up a nasty cut on Kehl's forehead which almost stopped the fight, but the doctors decided that he could continue. Kehl still landed some solid blows throughout, but Buakaw seemed to be on form and had an answer for everything Kehl threw at him.

Man, I picked a pretty packed weekend to go on vacation, didn't I? Then again, most of the weekends are packed and I've been working 60 hour weeks for the past few months, so maybe any weekend would do in that case, right? I kind of agree, just because I needed to not do any work for an extended period of time or else I was fearing that I'd be seeing my walls made out of gold bricks because the Federal Reserve is a conspiracy and driving axes through doors while my girlfriend looks not-so-pleased.

So this weekend there were two bigger events, Thai Fight and MAX Muay Thai, both of the Muay Thai persuasion and both featuring some solid names and solid fights. Thai Fight was the standard Thai Fight fare of bigger name Thais against some okay competition which sees the Thais walk away with some cool looking wins and everyone goes home happy.

MAX Muay Thai gave a bit more by the way of competitive fights to fans, including a one night, four man tournament. There were some legitimately interesting bouts on the card such as Aikpracha against Warren Stevelmans as well as Sitthichai against Juri Jehl and already fans went home with a bit of a better feeling than they did from the Thai Fight card, or, well, at least we all did.

MAX Muay Thai's 7th event, MAX 7 Bangkok goes down on March 29th in Bangkok and is lining up to be an awesome event. So in honor of that, here is the fight card as well as the new trailer for it. Check it out.